San Diego couple married 75 years passes away together

SAN DIEGO, CA (KTRK) -- It was a love story for the ages, like a tale straight out of the movies. A San Diego couple married 75 years dies together on their 75th anniversary.

Jeanette and Alexander Toczko, married in 1940, never liked to leave each other's side. They told their children that when it was time for them to pass that they wanted to die in each other's arms.

"My dad carried around a picture of my mother in her Holy Communion outfit in his wallet," the couple's daughter Aimee Toczko-Cushman told KGTV.

The Toczkos' children said their parents were basically boyfriend and girlfriend since they were 8-years-old and that they lived a long love affair.

"Their hearts beat as one from as long as I can remember," Toczko-Cushman told KGTV.

The couple moved to San Diego in the 1970s where Alexander became an avid golfer and played every day at Balboa Golf Course, until he had an accident.

"He must have fallen. He broke his hip," said Richard Toczko, the couple's son. He also said that is when his father's health took a turn for the worse, telling KGTV, "He was going fast."

Remembering the couple's wishes, hospice set-up a bed for Alexander beside his wife's so they could be next to each other.

Jeanette kept asking her children if it was June 29 because that was their wedding anniversary. Knowing that their father wasn't going to last much longer, the family decided to go along and celebrate their parent's 75th anniversary.

"And we said happy anniversary, and my mother was thrilled to death because it was their anniversary and she knew that he was going and that they had made it to 75 years," Toczko-Cushman told KGTV.The family says they let the couple have their final moments and take their final breaths together.

"And he died in her arms, which is exactly what he wanted. I went in there and told my mother he was gone; she hugged him and she said, 'See this is what you wanted. You died in my arms and I love you. I love you, wait for me, I'll be there soon,'" said Toczko-Cushman

Less than 24 hours later Jeanette joined her husband.

"They both entered the pearly gates holding hands," said Toczko.

Alexander Toczko was a World War II veteran, he and his wife are together for eternity buried at Miramar National Cemetery.